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Argentine Presidential Election, 1987
Overview Democracy returned to Argentina after Raul Alfonsín was elected president in 1981, and enjoyed widespread support from all of society after his inauguration. However, the biggest problem his admnistration had to face was the disastrous economic legacy the Dictatorship left, with debt and deficits from bad economic plans and the Brazilian war. Alfonsín initially took a statist path to the economy, maintaining the public companies and trying to renegotiate the national debt with his Minister Bernardo Grinspun. The government also quickly passed a new Labor Union and Syndicates code, which angered the Peronist unions, and he had to deal with several general strikes during his presidency. Alfonsín's landmark achievement, the civilian-led trialing and judgement of the Military Juntas and Left-wing guerrillas in 1984 earned him victory in the 1985 Legislative Elections, from a defeat (For the two big parties UCR and PJ) in 1983, which were victories for third parties such as the conservative UCeDé and socialist Partido Intransigente. The economy worsened from late 1984 onwards, and Alfonsín, listening to several demands from business sectors and his party for the aforementioned 1985 elections, replaced Grinspun with Juan Sorrouille as economy minister. Sorrouille adopted a new economic plan, the Plan Austral, which created a new currency (the Austral), froze prices for consumer goods and services, and also froze and limited salaries. The plan was an immediate success, ending the mounting inflation and increasing the popularity of the government, which served well for the 1985 vote. A partial defrosting of prices and salaries was enacted in 1986, but inflation once again appeared to complicate Alfonsín's government and the UCR for the 1987 presidential elections. Córdoba province governor, Eduardo Angeloz, was chosen as the canditate of the UCR, a more centrist and relatively right-wing figure to Raúl Alfonsín's Social Democratic faction of the party. Angeloz campaigned on expanding the Plan Austral and the enactment of several spending cuts and privatizing the most unprofitable state companies. His opponent, Governor of La Rioja Carlos Menem, was a member of the rightist faction of the Peronist movement, and his Presidential Campaign centered on the promises of wage hikes and state control of the economy, which was seen as a return to the PJ's origins. Angeloz quickly attacked these promises as impossible due to the economic situation. Álvaro Alsogaray, of the conservative Union del Centro Democrático (Union of the Democratic Centre, UCeDé) also promised liberal reforms to the economy, but at a much greater scale than the UCR candidate. In the end, Eduardo Angeloz was elected president of Argentina on Oct. 30 1987 with 47% percent of the votes and just shy of the electoral college count at 332 - out of 660 total, needing 330 to win. On December 10 1987 he was inaugurated as the second democratic president of Argentina. Four main parties in the election Union Civica Radical (Centrist) Eduardo Angeloz, Juan Carlos Pugliese. Partido Justicialista (Center-Right, Peronist) Carlos Menem, Herminio Iglesias. Union del Centro Democrático (Right, Conservative) Álvaro Alsogaray, Alberto Natale. Partido Intransigente (Left, Democratic Socialist) Oscar Alende, Raúl Rabanaque.